


Apses & Antiquities

by aurilly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Boarding School, Crossover, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: Psmith becomes obsessed with figuring out the secrets of their classmate, the very odd Edmund Pevensie.





	Apses & Antiquities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/gifts).



Mike entered the study to find Psmith poking disconsolately at the teapot. Bits of broken china lay strewn about his long feet. The sight was enough to stop Mike in his tracks, for Psmith was rarely, if ever, clumsy. He possessed the kind of statuesque grace around which objects seemed to harmoniously arrange themselves.

“Not a moment too soon, Comrade, not a moment,” he said in a slightly shaking voice. “You find me in a state of helpless shock. Nerves as delicately calibrated as mine were not made for Sedleigh. If nothing else, they must turn out men of iron at this place. I must look to see if Lord Nelson counts among the alumni. I have endured motorcar accidents less strenuous than the day-to-day in this tangle of chaos. However, I persevere. My character grows. Imagine if I had been here all the years I was at Eton. I might have been a modern-day Napoleon by now.”

Mike filed a mental note to ask Psmith more about this motorcar accident, but now was not the time. He knelt down and began picking up the teacup shards for placement in the rubbish bin. “Are you all right?” 

“I apologize for the destruction of your cup. It was a casualty I would have spared if I could. I will replace it of course, the entire set if need be.”

“Never mind about the cup. I want to know what’s got you so upset.”

"Your perspicacity and selfless compassion know no bounds, Comrade. Indeed, I am disturbed. I am as Wellington looking out the flap of his tent only to find his army in disarray, sipping at wine, instead of standing at attention in an impenetrable line. So did I, whilst preparing the tea, look outside our general’s fortress to find a scene that stirred me to the very depths. Tell me, are they at it still?"

Mike assumed that by a ‘tent’, Psmith meant their study, and that by ‘flap’, he meant the window, so he took a gander. He saw nothing but the usual: the cricket field that lay between Outwood’s house and the school buildings. A few chaps were out, taking advantage of the late afternoon’s fine weather to practice football choreography.

"Whatever it is, whoever it was, they must have gone. I don't see anything at all."

Psmith, who really had gone white to the gills—a worrying look on one already so pale and long—stood up, and, like a thief checking to see if the all was clear, peeped out of the window. He drew back immediately, lips pulled into a tight line. "You might have warned me. And now I have suffered a second blow, one from which I may never recover."

"But there's nothing at all. Just that chap Pevensie giving the younger kids a bit of practice. Good thing, too. They need it. Lord, but he’s a good coach. I’ve never seen the defensive line make a formation that effective in a real game." While Mike considered cricket the only sport worth his—or anyone’s—time, he appreciated the existence of football, in a vague way, as a method for boys not lucky enough to be good at cricket to get a bit of fresh air and exercise. It was nice of schools, he thought, to provide alternatives for the disadvantaged.

"They’ve becalmed themselves a bit by now, I grant you,” Psmith said, “but mere moments ago they looked about ready to storm some gates, or swarm an invisible force. I have never seen such maneuvers in the flesh, merely studied them in medieval military treatises.”

“Do you read a lot of those?”

Psmith sank, exhausted, into his usual deck chair and looked longingly at the kettle. Mike took the hint and began to prepare a new pot of tea to replace the cup Psmith had spilled. 

“Yet another episode to note in my memorandum book." To support his words—for Psmith was a lad of truth, mostly—he took a small notebook out of his blazer.

Mike laughed so hard that a few more tealeaves than usual fell into the pot. "Good god, man. What do you write in there? 

"This is my record of the foibles of our fellow men, or boys, rather.”

“I hope there aren't any notes on me."

“Some slight observations on your tells at the wicket, some of your more succinct but inspired turns of phrase, that sort of thing. Largely glowing praise, with no real suggestions for improvement. However, this Pevensie has slowly but surely come to account for a not insignificant number of pages. In recent weeks, unraveling the mystery has become one of my manias. Where some merely read detective stories, I find myself embroiled in juicy one."

“What’s wrong with Pevensie?” 

“Have you not noticed a distinct oddness about that young man?"

"Not particularly," Mike said. “Word on the street is he’s a lock for that Balliol our paters hoped we’d get. Same as his brother a few years ago, apparently. He’s captain of the fencing team, and secretary of the football team. Oh, and he’s in the archeological society with us. But I haven’t spoken to him very much.” 

“If I had known this paragon of an academic dynasty was here, I would have told my father that my odds of collaring that blasted Balliol were about as good as those of the Byzantine during the Battle of Pliska, and that he might as well keep me at Eton. But then I would not have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, for which I would not trade a cavern of diamonds, nor would I have become embroiled in what I call ‘The Mystery of Pevensie’. Once I work out the ending, I’m thinking of publishing it as a three-volume novel, bound in a handsome black leather casing, to be hocked all along the high street. With the proceeds, I shall buy a boat.”

“But what have you got on him?” Mike pressed. “He doesn’t do anything. Quiet chap, as far as I can tell.”

“It is understandable. A mind such as your own has so many demands on its attention. You cannot be expected to spare time for everything. But I have been observing and recording. I will relate to you an example.”

Psmith opened his little book. Mike poured himself a cup of tea and provisioned himself with biscuits in preparation for what was certain to be a long and Psmithian tale (his favorite kind). He curled up in the window seat and let it wash over him, all while watching the subject at hand continue to run the first-years ragged.

* * *

**April 11: Archaeology Society (weather drizzling, following an exceptionally poor roast for lunch)**

About a month into the term, Outwood had taken his little band to inspect the ruins of the Roman camp at Embry Hill, about ten miles away from the school. 

("Was that the one with the jolly cave?"

"No, Comrade, that was the one the week afterwards. This was the day when that slab of outer wall almost fell on Jellicoe. A traumatizing experience during which the genial blitherer of Sedleigh couldn’t stop giggling."

"Ah, that one. Frightful idiot had been climbing over it even though it shook just to walk near it. Carry on.")

About three-quarters of the archaeological society were quite earnest in their pursuit, while the rest used it as a way to roam unchecked outside the boundaries of the school. Mike and Psmith fell into this latter set. They had decided to take turns with the gun Mike had borrowed from his new cricket teammates in the village. While Mike pursued rabbits with the focus of a young wolf, Psmith lounged behind a tree and worked on a crossword puzzle. Such pursuits were made even easier this week, with Jellicoe’s accident having focused Outwood’s attention on the near-victim, leaving the rest of the boys to do as they pleased.

In the middle of thirteen across, a shadow fell on Psmith’s puzzle page. Looking up, he saw the pensive face of the Pevensie Prodigy standing before him. Pevensie’s trousers were stained with mud, and the collar of his blazer had gone half-cocked. However, as Psmith remarked with a whisper of envy’s shadow, his golden crown of prodigious wavy hair and overall aspect of natural, calm majesty (calmer and more majestic than even Psmith’s), caused him to rise above the grubbiness of his person. Sammy, Downing’s dog, toddled along beside him; far from fond of his master, he tended to go wherever his favorite boys went, and Pevensie appeared to be his most preferred. The worthy dog, who nuzzled to no man, currently nuzzled at Pevensie’s knee.

“You mind if I sit here, too?” Pevensie asked, politely. More politely than he needed to. “Sammy, too.”

“It’s a free tree,” Psmith said breezily. “And if it weren’t, the only price of admission would be the answer to this forsaken clue.”

Pevensie sank to the ground and stretched out his legs. He leaned over to read the clue. “’Galleon with three rows of oars, all set at the same level. It’s a trireme. That’s the answer. Trireme. Seven letters. See, you already have the M filled in from another clue.”

“I thank you,” Psmith replied as he penciled the word in. “How did you know that?”

“Spent some time on ships,” Pevensie said, looking off into the distance with a manly but wistful look on his face. For a brief moment, he seemed about five years older, and about five watts brighter, before settling again into the guise of a grubby but respectable prefect.

“On a Renaissance war vessel?”

Pevensie shrugged. “You’re one of the new boys this term, aren’t you? Psmith. I’ve heard about you.”

Despite its silence, Psmith could hear Pevensie voice the silent P, a gratifying gesture that built a healthy heaping of comradely feeling in Psmith’s breast.

(“He must have heard about it from that note you left after the night raid with Stone and Robinson. You signed it with the P.”

“Indeed, Comrade, but if you would but let me continue, you’ll find that this detail was about to come.”

“Right-ho. Sorry.”

“No need for apology. I take the interruption merely as a sign of your engagement with the tale. Pass another of those biscuits, will you?”)

“You’ve heard of the uncommon spelling of my name?” Psmith asked.

“Yeah, over in my house, they were talking about the incident like a siege. Great stuff. Especially that move of yours with the hot water bottles. Genius rag. Genius tactic, really. And good for you, sticking it to Stone and Robinson. They’ve been terrorizing the younger boys for years. The school needs more men like you and Jackson, who aren’t afraid to take on bullies.” Having finished his compliments, Pevensie turned a sternly owlish eye on Psmith. “Not that the study was yours to take. It was Spiller’s by rights.”

Not even having been caught climbing the sides of Buckingham Palace in his tenderer years been able to shame Psmith, but this boy’s quietly insightful judgement almost caused a blush to creep up his neck. Almost, but not quite.

“Are you an old member of the archaeological society?” he asked, swiftly brushing aside the subject. “If so, are you the earnest explorer, desperate to publish your latest discovery in ‘Apses & Things’, or are you a degenerate ragger looking only for a place to imbibe your troubles away?”

"I like walking about, looking at ruins. It reminds me of..." He trailed off. "It doesn't matter," he said. “At any rate, it’s nice to walk around the countryside, get out of doors. One is so very cooped up in a school. If I had my way, I would be always outdoors, exploring bits of forests that no human has ever set foot in. Talking to… I mean, looking at all the animals.”

Psmith couldn’t understand how a boy who had grown up in London, as he’d heard Pevensie had, had developed such a deep well of experience with and longing for virgin forests and such.

"I enjoy the outing,” he said, “but I doubt there’s anything new to find in this site, or in any of the ones Outwood has in his vast repertoire. The treasures of Embry Hill rest already in splendour, decorating the queen’s vestibule.”

“You never know,” Pevensie said, and, as if out of a desire to transform this banality into manful truth, he began digging into the soft earth with a bit of twig. 

“What about you?” Psmith asked. “You’re captain of the fencing team, secretary of the football team, and head of your house. Men of your responsibility rarely muck around with us awkward youths.”

Pevensie cast an appraising eye over Psmith. “Oh, come off it. You aren’t awkward at all. In fact, you have the look of a first-class bowler, though for some reason—spleen, most likely—you’ve decided to pretend otherwise. Same goes for your friend Jackson. He’s a born and trained athlete if I ever saw one. The two of you have fooled the school, but not me. It’s all right, you know. You don’t have to pretend to care about the ruins, not around me. It isn’t my club. I don’t care if you rag. I’m not a snitch.” Under his breath, it sounded as though he continued with, “Not anymore.”

“No one would have slandered you so.”

"I say, here's something,” Pevensie said next, and dug with more purpose than before. 

Sammy, who had been lounging quietly beside his wished-for master, wanted to help. He sat up and began trying to dig with the same paw. 

“Carefully, boy,” Pevensie whispered indulgently into the dogs ear, accompanied by a gentle stroking of his back. “Just a bit to the left. That’s it. With the flat end of the paw.” To support his words, he rubbed just below Sammy’s ear, stroking more precisely than Psmith had ever seen anyone pat a dog, almost as though he were trying to communicate something. “That’s it, boy. Just perhaps an inch deeper, and then stop.”

To Psmith’s surprise, Sammy dug more to the left and stopped after he’d gone exactly an inch deeper. He was still recovering from this miracle when Pevensie pulled something carefully out of the ground and rolled it around in his hands. Whispering too softly for anything but Psmith’s exceptional hearing to pick up, he mumbled to himself, "It’s worn just as that chess piece was. If it weren’t, it would look just like the one Corin had, except with bears instead of fawns.” Louder, he said, “Good job, friend.”

Sammy wagged his tail and licked Pevensie’s face as a ‘you’re welcome’, despite having been neither directly named nor looked at.

It was now, at this fever pitch moment of eccentricity, that Psmith resolved to buy a memorandum book. He had been rendered speechless, something that had never happened before, and was unlikely to happen again.

Professor Outwood, having by now satisfied himself as to Jellicoe’s physical and mental well being, strolled up to them, huffing and leaning on his handsome walking stick. "Found anything, boys?”

"I think so, sir." Pevensie held out whatever he’d dug up. “At first guess, I’d say it was a piece of a general’s belt buckle. A young one, judging by the size.”

“That’s rather specific. Let’s have a look,” Outwood said in an indulgent but skeptical tone. However, as soon as he’d inspected it through his pince-nez, his eyes widened and his back straightened. “I say, Pevensie. This _is_ more than a rock.”

“I’m almost certain it’s a belt buckle, sir,” Pevensie said. 

“I’ll send it to my old friend at the British Museum to have a look,” Outwood said.

* * *

“That _is_ rather rummy,” Mike remarked at the end of the tale. “Did you ever find out if he was right?”

"I overheard Outwood droning excitedly about it to the Headmaster, like an aunt at an estate auction. It appears that Pevensie had hit it directly on the nose. The tender years of the general and everything.”

“How on earth could he tell?”

“Outwood was saying that he confessed to having had some experience identifying ruins and spinning tales of their histories. And that the man whose house he and his siblings stayed in during that terrible summer had been something of a specialist.”

Mike sat up. “That’s the same thing he said when someone asked him where he’d learned all those fancy tricks he uses to win those fencing trophies. I’ve heard him tell Downing. Something about that summer. This man whose house he stayed in must have been hot stuff.”

“Either that, or, he’s lying.”

“What other reason could there possibly be?” Mike asked. “And why would he lie?”

“Hence the mystery. And tonight,” Psmith said, with a flourish worthy of Holmes himself, “I propose to unravel it.”

“Tonight? How will you see him tonight? He isn’t even in our house.”

“I heard him whispering to Sammy—”

“The dog again?”

“The pink beast himself. He was asking Sammy not to bark in excited delight if they happened to meet in the darkness, because, he explained, he was trying to escape the school grounds to venture undetected into the off-limits woods belonging to our disgruntled neighbor to the west, Lord Ashton. All to meet an old friend. But where the intrepid Pevensie may foil Downing, he will not escape the detection of Psmith!”

“You don’t mean to follow him, do you?” Mike couldn’t believe his ears. Not because he thought Psmith too much of a Fauntleroy to sneak out, but rather because Psmith loved nothing more than his full night’s sleep. He must have been obsessed with Pevensie, indeed, to sacrifice any of his slumber to see this through. 

“I mean to do exactly that.”

“You’ll be sacked.”

“We Psmiths do not get sacked. Ever since the episode of the missing shoe, I have been cultivating the Headmaster most assiduously. He cares for me as a botanist for an interesting blossom. He also believes me to be something of a raving lunatic, a stance that I must confess, I have allowed to continue. He will not sack an unstable but otherwise pleasant, polite, positive addition to the school. It would send a bad message. Word would go round the clubs that Sedleigh does not foster the right spirit, that it is not the place to turn the myriad troubled youths of the English upper crust into the men their fathers wish. No, better that he indulge me at all costs. And so, I will sally forth from our dorm tonight in pursuit of truth.”

“Well, you aren’t going to rag without me. I’m coming too.”

“I would never dream of…”

“You can’t stop me, Psmith.”

Psmith sighed. “Well, I will never say no to your company and support. Be ready to climb down the drainpipe with me at midnight, will you? For that is the hour at which Pevensie means to make his escape, per his comments to the dog.”

Mike had long finished his tea, but wished for another cup, to help him get through the night.

* * *

Together, under the light of the full moon, the two escape artists ran along the shadows, past the cricket field, over the fence separating the school from the woods, and through the trees. 

“We have no idea in which direction he went,” Mike pointed out.

“Knowing his enthusiasms, he has gone into the deepest, darkest, most untouched section of the wood. Which would be to the left, since the right takes you to town.”

“Wonderful,” Mike grumbled, but followed. 

They continued to run, slowing down as the forest grew denser and the light afforded by the moon became obscured. Mike was halfway to washing his hands of the whole business, deciding that Pevensie was exactly what he’d thought all along—a quiet but pleasant and wholly unremarkable chap. Not one to be out at night at all.

Then they crossed a stream.

It was as though they’d crossed an invisible barrier. A soft light ahead beckoned them. The sounds of song and laughter reached them, and the air itself seemed to grow warmer. It took all the practical common sense Mike had learned in his eighteen long years to keep his sweater on, because any fool knew not to throw one’s clothes away in the forest. 

A girl ran by, giggling, but with a joyous, ethereal, wildly beautiful sort of giggle, not the choked silliness of Jellicoe. Mike, feeling drunk from a delicious scent that permeated the very air, followed. Psmith, always a pal, dogged his heels.

Soon, they arrived at the center and source of all this sensation. The sight that greeted the two boys was most unexpected. An extraordinarily good-looking but wild youth, wearing little more than a bedsheet and a crown of ivy, sat on a moss-covered rock, pouring wine for his little gathering. Pevensie, wearing an ivy crown of his own, and clad in a nightshirt, sat at the youth’s right side.

“Friends of yours, my king?” the wild youth asked Pevensie, pointing it at newcomers Mike and Psmith.

“Oh, hello,” Pevensie said, and later on Mike described it as slurring with perfect clarity. “They’re two chaps from my school. They’re all right. You can let them in. But what on earth are you two doing here?”

“I think they are here to ask you that very question,” the youth said, and Mike, despite having ragged his way through most of Greek, knew that this was Bacchus. Bacchus himself. 

He goggled.

Psmith, on the other hand, had never been more at home than in the company of a god. Elegantly, and with as much restrained majesty as the rest of the company, he removed his sweater and shoes and socks, leaving only his striped pajama pants. Bowing, he accepted a goblet of wine from one of the girls—maenads—and sat down on the other side of Bacchus.

“Comrade Jackson and I are honored to accept your invitation. What a note this will make for my memorandum book,” he began, and did not stop for quite some time.


End file.
